Some people watch Game of Thrones for the fantastical storylines and audacious acting. Some probably watch it for the violence. Others maybe watch it for the nudity.
But at least one person seems to love the HBO series for the number of people who are set on fire. It just so happens that this person is the show’s stunt coordinator. Why else would Rowley Irlam be boasting that an episode from two seasons ago broke the show’s record—hell, maybe it’s the all-time record for any TV series in history—for the largest number of people set on fire?
In an interview with reporters, via the Express, Irlam said that the show set 20 men on fire in a scene with Daenerys Targaryen and her dragons in season 5.
“We set fire to 20 guys in one day and used a 45-foot flame thrower on a motion control crane so we could control the dragon,” Irlam told reporters. “That was a new record, I think. It was the most amount of people that had been set on fire in one day.”
But don’t worry, Irlam said. Everything and everybody is safe during shooting.
“Health and safety for us is not a grey area,” Rowley noted. “We endeavor to shoot a sequence that is very dynamic, exciting, looks really dangerous, but it’s never our intention to hurt anyone and we would never do anything recklessly.
“You do have tiny nicks and bumps and hands get knocked with the sword, but we don’t have any big accidents as we always make sure everyone knows what it going to happen next.”
The last season of Game of Thrones will premiere July 16, and if the past seasons (and the past predilection for pyromania) are any indication, it sounds like there’s going to be plenty of heat.
H/T A.V. Club